the np-hard absolute value equation (ave), ax-$|x|$=b, where a is an n-by-n real matrix and b is an n-by-1 real vector is solved by a succession of linear programs. the linear programs arise from a reformulation of the ave as the minimization of a piecewise-linear concave function on a polyhedral set and solving the latter by successive linearization. a simple matlab implementation of the successive linearization algorithm solved 100 consecutively generated 1000-dimensional random instances of the ave with only five violated equations out of a total of 100,000 equations. paper is available at: ftp://ftp.cs.wisc.edu/pub/dmi/tech-reports/06-02.pdf